Goldstein: Shanah Bet
by Kira Sharp
Summary: What's a nice Jewish boy like Anthony Goldstein doing at Hogwarts? Well, for starters, he goes by Yehuda instead of Anthony, he's a transplant from a black hat yeshiva, and he's just finished his 1st year, courtesy of Laazov's award-winning story Goldstein. Here are several imaginary scenes leading up to Anthony's bar mitzvah circa Chamber of Secrets, December Dilemma and onward.
1. Introduction and Disclaimers

What's a nice Jewish boy like Anthony Goldstein doing at Hogwarts? Well, for starters, he goes by Yehuda instead of Anthony, he's a transplant from a black hat yeshiva, and he's just finished his first year away at wizard school, courtesy of Laazov's incredible fan novella _Goldstein,_ winner of the Booker Prize for fan fiction.

What does the future have in store for our favorite frum little wizard? This is an unlicensed work of Year Two fan fiction set in the Goldstein/Potterverse, printed with the gracious permission of Laazov, the series' creator. You will find canon Ravenclaws Michael Corner, Terry Boot, Kevin Entwhistle, and Stephen Cornfoot in the pages of J. K. Rowlings' _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_ ; Terry will continue opening his big mouth on behalf of the forces of good in _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_. Otherwise, the resemblance of any characters or places to real persons is completely coincidental, and stems only from my limited experience.

This story is a gift to Jedi Master Laazov, who inspired us all with a saga on how there's more to any person than the color of their hat and there's room in the sandbox for every single one of us. With humble thanks to Soferet and Lamrot Hakol, my stalwart beta-readers, and to everyone else who's ever believed over the years.

If you want to have a discussion on the merits of writing fan fiction about fan fiction, drop by my second-period class, where we're doing a bang-up job on the quantum mechanics of fate vs. free will. Normal is in pretty short supply around here.

 _To all the Avi's of the world, who speak kindly, judge favorably, and love without stint. Ken yirbu._

So, nu, read already.


	2. December Dilemma

_וַיֹּאמֶר_ _,_ _נָקֵל מִהְיוֹתְךָ לִי עֶבֶד_ _,_ _לְהָקִים אֶת_ _-_ _שִׁבְטֵי יַעֲקֹב_ _,_ _ונצירי_ _(_ _וּנְצוּרֵי_ _)_ _יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהָשִׁיב_ _;_ _וּנְתַתִּיךָ לְאוֹר גּוֹיִם_ _,_ _לִהְיוֹת יְשׁוּעָתִי עַד_ _-_ _קְצֵה הָאָרֶץ_

" _It is too light a thing for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob; I will make you also a light for the nations, so my salvation may reach the ends of the earth." (Isaiah 49:6)_

Wednesday, December 23, 1992

The bell over the door jingled and a snowy gust blew through the shop as the schoolboys came jostling in from the cold. Avi looked up from the counter to see them brushing snow off their black overcoats, jostling with armfuls of Christmas packages and Styrofoam cups of cocoa, utterly incongruous among the kosher shops and Brazilian cafes of Clapton Junction. Avi rose with alacrity from his seat, with a protective eye towards the silver. He tried vainly to make eye contact with some sort of chaperone, but the two teenagers at the back of the throng were singing, "G-d rest ye, merry hippogriffs," and pulling each other's scarves without the slightest pretense of responsibility. Avi cleared his throat nervously. This gang had definitely gotten off at the wrong bus stop.

"Can I help you find something?" he inquired with a frozen smile. _Like the Tube station two blocks away?_

"Erm, yes, actually…" One boy stepped politely up to the counter. The rest scattered through the narrow aisles, pawing at merchandise faster than Avi could say, "Oi! Mind the glass!"

"What are these little spinning things?"

"Ooh, this one's got lights!"

"This one's got legs. I ask you, what's the point of a spinning top with legs?"

"How do they make it walk without magic?"

"What can I help you with?" Avi inquired hastily.

The boy at the counter unwound a few more turns of his school scarf to reveal an earnest, studious face and unsettlingly clear blue eyes. "We're looking for a bar mitzvah present for a friend," the young man explained.

Avi quickly shifted gears and tried to assume his least patronizing smile. You did get an occasional non-Jew in the shop, awkwardly fumbling about for an appropriate party gift. "Well, then! We have some nice books about Jewish footballers," he smiled helpfully, "and in the back we've got some new jerseys all the way from Israel. And we've a whole range of personalized bar mitzvah stock here-" Avi stepped around the counter past the Hanukkah display. "Let's see what we can do for you."

"Erm…" The boy behind the counter was unconvinced. "I don't think that's his sort of thing at all. We were thinking of getting him something he could use."

"Well, the Hanukkah menorahs are on sale already," Avi waved a hand hopefully towards the display. "We've got some nice ones in this year, very modern."

"He doesn't come of age until spring," the boy explained awkwardly, brushing snow off his curls. "We'll all be in school then, so we figured we'd best get him something now when we're all coming through London together."

"Well, now! That was very enterprising of you," Avi grinned. "Going to be quite a party, is it?"

The young man gave the matter some thought. "I shouldn't think so," he considered. "He's probably going home after the Easter hols and flying back as soon as he's through. They give him so much trouble already, about his holidays and his being out of school, I wouldn't think they'd be particularly pleased about a birthday party."

"Hey, look, Michael! They've got his book!"

The three schoolboys flocked to the Artscroll shelf, where a fourth was excitedly leafing through a pocket siddur.

"Getting a good look at it at last, Boot? Mind you don't wet yourself with excitement!"

"Look, it's got a psalm for every day of the week!"

"Hey, they've got a blue one, too! We should get him a blue one to match House colors. No sense in him praying out of a red one when he could get a blue one."

"It's a prayer book, Kevin!" The blond boy looked up from the Artscroll with exasperation. "It's not his Quidditch colors."

"Hold on, hold on! Look at this one with the leather cover and the gold chasing! They've got a whole set! Get him this!"

The boy from the counter turned to Avi. "What's the difference between the blue one and the red one?"

"The red is for Jews of Germanic origin," Avi explained. "The blue has the old Spanish liturgy, but anyone who's actually of Mediterranean descent knows that it's Hasidic variant on the Ari Za"l, and not the true Spanish practice at all. The real Sephardic Jews buy the Orot-" he pointed at the books for emphasis as the strangers' eyes widened, "or the Mekor. And that one," he indicated boy still holding the handsome green volume with the gold filigree work, "is a prayer book for Jews of Moroccan descent, but only for the High Holidays."

Abashed, the boys slid the _seforim_ carefully back onto the shelf. "What about this big one? You think he'd like that? That's a monster of a book!"

"Use your head, pixie-brain! That's Volume 12, part III! Fancy starting the series without knowing what happened in I and II!"

"There are more than thirty of these! Do you think he's even got past the first few?"

"Do you think he even reads this one?"

"We were thinking of getting him a book," the boy named Michael explained gravely, "since his family sends him a lot of books from home, and he's always studying. But we don't know which ones he's got and which ones he doesn't. That's why I was hoping to get him something practical."

"Hey, hey, look at this! They've got dress robes! Does he have Jewish dress robes?"

"I've never seen him in any."

"Cor, they don't half like stripes, do they?"

"Maybe it's tribal markings or something, like a tartan."

"Excuse me, sir?" Before Avi could redirect the two fellows who were rooting through the _tallis_ rack, the teenage girl pointed to the case of _mezuzot._ "These amulets-do they actually work?"

"The… what?" This conversation was switching topics faster than a page of Gemara. It took a moment for Avi to process what the girl had said and realize that someone in his shop had actually made a valid observation.

"The amulets." The girl looked at him with a calculating, businesslike expression. "Like the one you have on the door of your shop. I can see the parchment in the mounting case. Do they actually work?"

Avi cast an eye over the kids milling about his shop, the older boy examining the stack of _shtenders_ , the younger ones exclaiming over a pile of illustrated Bibles. This was not the usual crowd from Stoke Primary, and the heavy black cloaks and old school ties were definitely a cut above the local comprehensive. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out where this lot was coming from. The girl was still standing at the _mezuzah_ case, politely waiting for a response. With a sudden reckless giddiness, Avi let his inner Talmudist cut ahead of his inner salesman.

"That depends," he answered seriously, "on what you consider 'in working order.' I wouldn't count on one to save my shop from being burgled or damaged in a natural disaster. I certainly don't think they'd save me from going out of business. It's not a post-box for Divine protection by any means. But if you ask around, you'll find quite a lot of people who'd had a run of really life-threatening misfortune, who suddenly find things taking a turn for the better when they've had their _mezuzahs_ checked. And you wouldn't have to look far, either."

The girl received all this with a patronizing smile. "Just as I thought," she pronounced. "They 'work,' as one might say, metaphorically? Good on you for trying, just the same!" She cast Avi the same sort of look one might give a precocious child who, despite the mounting evidence, has carefully set out a plate of sweets for Father Christmas.

"Bronwyn, you troll!" The older boy smacked her upside the ear with a dripping scarf. "Did you really expect to find a working amulet in a Muggle gift shop in Clapton Junction?"

"You never know!" The girl winked at Avi conspiratorially. "After all, this here birthday boy is in school with us, isn't he? Possible he's not the only one in the neighborhood, innit? Can't blame a girl for asking, hmm?" She waved her fingers at Avi as if inviting him to take her side in the discussion.

Avi stared, riffling through in his mind all the public school colors he could think of for a nice Jewish boy to sport. "So, your friend lives in the neighborhood, then?" he inquired politely, half of his mind trying to salvage a sale while the other half hammered away at the mystery.

"With all due respect, sir," This was the blond boy who'd found the Artscrolls, now making his way to the counter with an armful of children's books. "I think he's rather trying to keep a low profile. He's kind of the only one."

"Is that so?" Wheels in Avi's mind spun as he searched for wrapping paper more suitable for a gentile's tree. A prestigious public school offering a spot to a local boy, his family unable to pass it up... And so instead of donning a blue blazer at Yavneh or at Immanuel, there he was with the old school tie, watching his mates sitting in chapel and eating _treif_ while reading his… Artscroll…

"I'll say!" Michael agreed. "Would you believe the Head of House set him lines for going out to midnight prayers? Actual lines just for being out with his book?"

"He was out without leave," said blond Boot stiffly, putting down _Why Noah Chose the Dove_ and a picture book of Queen Esther.

"And thick enough to get caught," added the girl Bronwyn affectionately. "Terry Boot, are you serious? Are you really buying something for yourself?"

"It's the same Bible!" said Terrence stoutly. "Can you gift wrap these, sir, please, and separately?"

Avi settled on the dreidel wrapping paper and trimmed it to size. _Seforim_ sent from home. Professors who didn't understand about the holidays. This was a young man paddling upstream, trying to maintain some sort of connection to his _Yiddishkeit_ in the face of immutable British high society _._ And here were his mates, blundering through northwest London like fish in a bicycle shop, trying to get him a bar mitzvah present while doing their Christmas shopping. He looked at the schoolboys with new eyes.

"What about these?" Michael was perusing the Seder plates. "Could he use one of these?"

"That's a good question," Avi answered. "I should hope that he'd be with his family at home and not need one for school. Does he have candlesticks?"

Michael nodded. "Yes, and a goblet for Friday nights and Saturdays. The elves bring it up from the kitchen with his special food."

"You prat! Don't tell him that!" Terrence smacked his mate in the shoulder, but Avi smiled at the joke and waved at other two who had managed to find a half-shawl blue and bronze _tallis_ , and were mulling over the price. "Boys, if you don't mind me saying so, I think his family is probably getting him one of those. And they may have something larger in mind. Not that a fellow shouldn't be sporting his colors, of course."

"I told you!" The larger boy smacked the other fellow good-naturedly. "Imagine a proper wizard doing incantations in a little scarf like that. Fringes dropping in his tea, and all. I told you he'd want a proper cloak." He looked about for a place to throw his empty cup and Avi quickly brought over the wastepaper bin.

"Do you have," Michael said slowly, "a double candleholder set at right angles?"

Avi blinked. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"For Saturday nights, with the goblet and the book. One candle held this way and the other," the boy bumped his fists together awkwardly, "like so. Do you have something he could put the candles in so they touch properly without dripping all over the carpet?"

Avi could see it in his mind's eye, this one solitary _Ben Torah_ in a room full of old school ties, leaving wax on the Axminster carpet as he tried to make _havdalah_ with two candles held together. And all the old boys watching him, pointing...

...No, not pointing. And not laughing, either. They'd come to buy him a candle for his bar mitzvah.

"I have just the thing," Avi beamed. "Fellas? Over here." He led the group over to the display and watched in satisfaction as they began excitedly haggling over the different candles and contrasting the ones with extra braids or pressed flowers. "What your friend is doing is called _havdalah_ , and it's the ceremony that ends the Sabbath and begins a new week. It requires a candle with multiple wicks, which is a lot easier to hold in one hand if you buy it premade. And if you use a nice tray like this, you don't even get wax on the rug."

Michael examined the _havdalah_ sets and let out a low whistle. "He'd love this... It's got a goblet and box to match and everything. But... £100? I don't think we can scrape together that much, even if Terry's mum chips in."

Avi was too intent on the _kiddush Hashem_ to worry about the profit margin. "Hanukkah's half over," he pushed. "I'll give you a special deal. And the £100 is for the Sterling silver-I shouldn't think a fellow would want to bring anything that expensive to school anyway. How much pocket money do you have among the four of you?

"Sixty quid."

"I'll chip in ten," the teenage boy came up behind them with a _shtender_ in each hand. "Merry Christmas, Bronwyn!"

"Medwin, you sweet thing!" the girl exclaimed. "Matching bookstands! You don't have to!" As Miss Bronwyn turned over the faux mahogany and silver, Avi cast an alarmed glance over the etching and was relieved to see nothing more problematic than _Vehagita Vo Yomam VaLaila.*_ They were students, after all, and they could be doing a lot worse than minding their studies. And something in Avi's bookish heart warmed at the sight of a chap getting his girl a _shtender_ so they could study giant books together. This lot was definitely going to be the talk of his dinner table.

"I know," the older boy replied, elbowing her affectionately. "Hey, can we get these engraved?"

"I'll engrave them for us, you silly thing," the girl beamed at him. "Just give me a minute when we get outside. All right, you lot, let's get a move on! Some of us have got Christmas shopping to finish. Everybody pass up your Muggle money to Michael and let's get about our business."

The boys exploded in protest. "How about I give you the pewter set for seventy?" Avi offered, "And I'll throw in a beeswax candle to fit?"

"Oh, don't get him the pewter one!" This from the oldest boy. "Everybody's got pewter, it'll look like the school stuff and some half-brained elf will take it for polishing by mistake. Look at this one here, with the cup and the bowl all molded together in a circle, or this painted one-that's nice!"

"That," preened Avi, pleased that someone outside the tribe had an eye for real art, "is a Yair Emanuel limited edition. I wouldn't bring that one to school either, but Emanuel does a nice travel edition, all of Shabbos in one little set: candleholder, spice box, cup, everything, and I'll give you that for £70. Fits together in a box, just perfect for school, take a look!"

The two leaders looked over it in awe, taking the pieces apart and fitting them back together like a puzzle. "It's perfect," said Michael, his eyes aglow. "But... £70? Aren't there… other charges or something, in a Muggle shop like this?"

One day Avi would figure out how he just knew he was looking at a twelve-year-old completely baffled by a VAT, but just at that moment the door jingled again, so he said brightly, "All taken care of, £70 even. Give it to your friend and G-d bless. It's a fine thing you're doing, young man."

"Get him a gift bag!" The two fellows who'd been looking for school colors marched up proudly bearing a blue _tallis_ bag off the clearance rack. Avi restrained his impatience- and his amusement. "That one is monogrammed," Avi told them. "It's got a name embroidered on it already, which is why it's the cut-price rack."

"Way to go, Kevin!" joked the smaller one. "Happy birthday, Yehuda, many happy returns on your bar mitzvah… he opens the package and it says CONGRATULATIONS MEHITABEL. Real smooth there, mate!"

Avi looked at the _tallis_ bag. "Did… did you just say Yehuda?"

The boys all spoke together. "Yehuda, yeah." "Anthony." "That's him." "Boys, no!"

"Happy Hanukkah!" Avi greeted the two men in black hats who'd just walked in. "Ten percent off everything in the store, fifty percent on the rack by the door! Be with you in a minute, ma'am!" This to the woman who was coming in now.

"That's all right, luv, I'm just here to pick up my son. Cor, parking in this neighborhood is really something! All right there, Terry? Having a good time with your friends?"

Avi let the chorus of season's greetings wash over him as he stared at the _tallis_ bag. "I think…" he said at last. "Your friend will get a big kick out of this 'gift bag.' I'll wrap it up for you. No charge. I think that this one was meant to be."

"Blimey, you don't mean it actually says Yehuda on it, do you?" The boys were incredulous.

"Yehuda," Avi pointed to a word, "right here." Avi reread the inscription: _Lev Yehuda ben Ami_.* It was definitely meant to be.

"No way!"

"Fifty points to Entwhistle!"

"Thank yer, thank yer verymuch."

"I think it's so nice they're doing this," the mother beamed at him as he rang up the purchases. "It's so hard being religious in schools these days. When I was at school, the other girls were such fearful oiks about it. I can't imagine any of us taking an evening in London together before going home for Christmas. Do you have enough for all this, boys?"

They did not, and their commensurate _chesed_ seemed to come with a peculiar deficiency in basic maths, but the mother took charge, and it was all sorted out in end. Another family walked in, and Avi rang for Linda to come up front and see to the customers. "Give me one second to wrap everything up for you," he stalled. "It won't take a minute."

Normally it didn't take Avi even a minute to wrap a package, but it wasn't the size or shape that was delaying him. He turned his back on the nonsensical customer natter to select something from the rack behind him. ("Do you need a ride to the nearest grate, dears? It's dreadful to apparate with all those packages!") He pulled out a length of blue and silver star paper and trimmed it to size. ("Thanks all the same, Mrs. B., but I just got my license, and I promised I'd take Michael along!") He thought for a long moment, fished a square of matching paper from the bin, and penned a few sentences in sprawling Hebrew cursive.

 _Mazal tov l'Yehuda Antony, ha-bochur ha-bar mitzvah, she-tizkeh l'mitzvos lehakdish shem shomayim. Ki ner mitzvah, v'Torah or.*_

"Thank you for the help, sir!"

"Have a good evening!"

"A very merry Christmas to you!"

"MUM! I can't believe you just said that! Happy Hanukkah!"

Avi smiled. "Happy holidays! And G-d bless."

"Avi?" called Linda from the back. "It's getting dark. Can you hit the lights?" Avi tucked the message into the _tallis_ bag and finished wrapping the package. As the schoolboys and their families pulled on their cloaks and stepped out into the deepening twilight, he flipped the switch. Five orange bulbs twinkled on the menorah in the shop window. But when Avi looked out onto the street, the boys had vanished.

* * *

 **Regarding Translations:**

 _The name embroidered on the prayer shawl bag found by Kevin and Stephen translates nicely as, "The heart of Yehuda, the son of my people." It is apparently a typographer's error for the name Yehuda Leib; the shopkeeper remembers the mixup and is no doubt glad to see the last of this otherwise unsellable velvet pouch._

 _The note penned by the shopkeeper in more than usually Orthodox language reads, "Mazal tov to Yehuda Anthony, the bar mitzvah boy. May you have the privilege to perform God's mitzvot to sanctify the name of Heaven."_

 _The quotation on the bookstand reads, "Thou shalt pore over it day and night." (Joshua 1:8)_

* * *

 **Glossary:**

 _Ari Z"al:_ Rabbi Isaac Luria, renowned kabbalistic master of 16th century Safed. Ironically, although the man's full name was Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazy, his liturgy follows the traditions of his Sephardic mother.

 _Ben Torah:_ literally, "son of the Torah." This is not a common idiom in spoken language, being of a literary/archaic or overly familiar turn of phrase. Used in a highly complimentary fashion to describe a scholar of Scripture who not only can discourse upon the holy texts, but is a veritable role model of the precepts they teach.

 _Gemara_ : the main body of the Jewish Talmud, circa 500 C.E. The Talmud is a written record of the oral tradition, and subsequently is a highly non-linear document; any given discussion wanders off to follow a remote point of evidence or devolves into an anecdote festival, e.g. "what my rabbi's rabbi always said." What passes for a narrative hops from one point to another in a thousand years' worth of sacred tangents and vaguely relevant pieces of Biblical exegesis. The Gemara is an expansion of the Mishna (oral tradition circa 200 C.E., literally "The Torah—Second Edition"), which you see Yehuda studying in the original story. The enormous 36-volume book set Kevin and Stephen admire above is a set of _Gemara._ And no, Yehuda will not start studying it for another year or two.

 _Havdalah:_ as above, the Saturday night ceremony demarcating the end of the sacred Sabbath time and the beginning of a new week. The observers bless the wine, smell the spaces, and feel the warmth of the candle flame.

 _Kiddush Hashem:_ doing your Creator proud. Literally "sanctifying the name of G-d," and implies more than usually exemplary behavior, especially in public around secular citizens who will then associate your high moral compass with people of your faith.

 _Mezuzah:_ (pl. _mezuzot_ ) as above, as per Deuteronomy 6:3-9, writing God's words "on the doorposts of thy house, and upon thy gates." The rabbis indicate that one does not have to take a paintbrush to one's own doorpost, as per the Exodus story, but merely should have three appropriate texts from Deuteronomy copied on parchment by a scribe and affixed at shoulder level in a small case marked with the divine initial.

 _Mitzvah:_ (pl. _mitzvot_ ) a good deed or divine commandment-the notions are synonymous to the Biblical mind.

 _Sephardic:_ as above, Jews of the Mediterranean diaspora who fled Spain and Portugal in 1492 for North Africa, Italy, Turkey, Syria, and the New World, bringing the medieval Spanish traditions with them. Distinct from _Ashkenazic_ , denoting Yiddish Jews from Franco-Germany.

 _Shtender:_ a tabletop book stand to prop up a prayer book or other large tome (Yiddish).

 _Tallis:_ also _tallit_ in modern Hebrew. A prayer shawl. The shopkeeper is quite right that any man of Yehuda's denomination would not be caught dead in anything less than a five-foot-plus cape of a _tallit gadol_ , a.k.a. The Large Edition, which our little Yehuda rightly expects to be too big for him. See Marc Chagall or any Jewish art print ever to examine the traditional pattern of stripes.


	3. The Dawn Service

**The Dawn Service**

הֲלוֹא אָב אֶחָד לְכֻלָּנוּ, הֲלוֹא אֵל אֶחָד בְּרָאָנוּ; מַדּוּעַ, נִבְגַּד אִישׁ בְּאָחִיו-לְחַלֵּל, בְּרִית אֲבֹתֵינוּ.

 _Have we not all one Father? Did the same God not create us all? (Malachi 2:10)_

March 19, 1993

The first glimmer of sunlight was technically visible as Niloufar stood up to recite the _Surah Al Fatiha_. Yes, she was technically late, but Niloufar wasn't praying for technicalities. She prayed seldom enough as it was, and it ought to count for something that she'd made a special effort to scarf down some bread and jam and a cup of tea before the fast began. Some tiny part of her soul was deliberately cavalier about the _Salah_ time, just because it would have infuriated her grandmother, just as another rather larger part of her made a special effort for Ramadan, not for the sake of Allah or anyone else who might be listening, but just to spite the Shahanshah and his ruthless Magi. The important part was that she was praying.

Niloufar did not like praying in company. This was true even in the good days before the Magi came to power, where she sat sulking on her rug in her grandmother's house in Parsa, counting the minutes until she could sneak back to her books and art supplies. It was her grandmother's will that the sorceresses of Farsian be as distinguished for their immutable piety as for their formidable talents, and Niloufar never had much energy to spare for Allah's will after having to submit every breath to the will of that tyrannical old witch. Praying at home had been different-when they had bothered, of course. You prayed because you chose to acknowledge your Creator, not because someone was watching you. And at Hogwarts, she was her own mistress, and she was jolly well not going to pray under the unyielding scrutiny of anyone.

It wasn't like there was a lot of time for prayer in a busy school of witchcraft and wizardry, anyway. But _Fajr_ was easy. Fifty years of uninterrupted peace and prosperity ensured that Britons slept like the dead, and even early-morning Quidditch practice didn't bring anyone down to the common room at the hours a Persian sorceress was used to keeping. In the grey light before dawn, she seldom even bothered with a song of protection or a circle of invisibility. It felt so peaceful here, so far from home, watching the sun come up perched on a towering spire of a magic castle. So safe.

The sound of a footfall on the stairs jerked her out of her reverie with a start. Niloufar snapped up out of her _sajdah_ and instantly faded into the background. Her wand was in her hand before her ears even registered the second footfall. It wasn't rational, of course, and she didn't have to throw back her hood and roll back her long sleeves as if to cover for a crime. Nobody for thousands of miles even knew the difference between a proper Persian mage and a traitorous Arab apologist of a _saheer_ , and no one was going to bring the wrath of the Shahanshah down on anyone for the capital crime of saying the wrong prayers. But you didn't get out of Parsa without knowing what to do when the sound of a footfall interrupted your prayers-and not being able to fire off all the charms in your head between the _Allahu Akbar_ and the _Subhanaraby-al-Allah_. Somebody was tiptoeing down the stairs, and they were trying not to be heard. _La Khazita!_ They might see, but they would not perceive her.

Niloufar's heart rate slowed down as she slowly breathed in and out. Some early riser of a Ravenclaw was coming down to the Common Room: that was all. Niloufar got a hold of herself and puller her hood back over her head. She even had half a minute to work up some really cutting remarks for any wretched English brat who hadn't already heard that she'd turn him into stone for just one more stupid question about her little flying carpet. Or someone her own size who deserved to lose his voice for the day for another round of, "I say! You're a Persian, aren't you! So the Persian wizards, not the Arabians, were the first to make their prayer rugs levitate, so as to say their incantations without touching the earth? Have you read _A History of Magic?"_

It was the little Jewish kid, of all people, the one from the Rare Books Room, fully dressed in his grey uniform and carrying a square velvet pouch under one arm. An interesting kid, that one. Niloufar didn't have anything against him. His heart was in the right place. In the library, when Elfgiva Turner had pointed her out and said, "And that's old Nile Persian. Very powerful witch, that one-I'd steer clear of that one if I were you," he had been all, "Well, I can see that you're the kind of power-hungry English aristocrat who gives tinkly little nicknames to everyone to show you own the destiny of everyone around you. And I'm as ethnic as she is. Heavens knows what you'll do to my name as soon as my back is turned. I feel very sorry for her, having to put up with you all the time. You do realize she heard you, right? Do you actually think that being head of the Rare Books Society, gives you license to be a self-centered, obnoxious bully?" Well, he didn't actually say any of that, but he did think it.

A British wizard might have had to say _Legilimens_ and taken many clumsy seconds to see into his enemy's mind, sorting through scenes like flipping channels on the television, but any Persian sorceress still left standing could listen in on an intruder's every thought before he even crossed her threshold. Niloufar turned the _Ashma Kedavra_ charm over in her mind, barely even realizing she was doing it, and his heart became as audible as the birdsong. Yehuda, his name was. He had actually gone out of his way to learn her real name, so she made an effort to remember his. She remembered seeing him saying his prayers in the library on several winter afternoons, keeping out of everyone's sight, like her. He had never interrupted her mornings before. She listened, first with frank curiosity, and then with open amusement.

* * *

Yehuda tossed and turned in the dark of the early morning. He recited _Tehillim_ and counted sheep, but nothing was any use: he simply could not go back to sleep. This was not a day to start without a good night's rest: he had his entire History of Magic essay to write and all sorts of little things to sort out before going home to London. This was his last night in his four-poster bed before being back in the boys' room with bar mitzvah festivities all around him: heavens knows when he'd get another full night's sleep. Yehuda stressed about the fact that he wasn't sleeping, which was counterproductive in the extreme. Why was it that he couldn't sleep because he was worried about not being asleep?

Of course, he was avoiding the issue. Stress was endemic to early mornings these days. Today was his _bar mitzvah_ day. The real one, not the ceremony at Beth Medrash of Golders Green. He was thirteen years and one day old on the Hebrew calendar. Mornings from now on were going to have to look different. And proud as he was, a small part of him was still dreading the change.

Across the room, Yehuda's green _History of Magic_ book lay neglected under his blue school tie. He stared at them both for a very long minute. There was no point in postponing the inevitable. Perhaps his jangling nerves had awakened him this early on purpose, to get up and get it done as early as possible, when all the others were asleep. Practice did not make perfect, but this was the perfect time to have another go. Moving as quietly as he could, Yehuda, swung himself out of bed and headed towards the dresser.

* * *

The little Jewish kid walked over to the window and unzipped his bag. He placed his prayerbook on the sill and took out a set of little black boxes. Pride and warmth radiated off of him as he unwound the leather straps. And nervousness. Lots and lots of nervousness.

Niloufar didn't know much about Jews or Judaism. The Magi nominally approved of Jews, since they had come to Persia in its glory days before the Arabs came north, but the few Jews in Parsa knew enough to keep to themselves and keep their heads down, in case the chief wizards changed their minds. There had been a Jewish family on Niloufar's block at home; they had played ball in the street with Niloufar's brothers, and Niloufar rather liked them. After the war began and the Farsians had fled to the U.K., Niloufar heard the family had been killed when Muggles started blowing each other up. She had been sorry to hear about it. She had never seen any of them trying to balance tiny little boxes on their heads like this. Perhaps it was a wizard thing. Or a Jewish _Fajr._

The Jewish boy found the page in his book, and slowly and proudly blessed his Creator for making him holy enough to command him to lay out these prayer boxes. He carefully balanced the first one on his left arm and wound the leather straps down his hand. _You open Your hand and provide for every living thing._ This was the moment, he thought, the moment he became a man. He wondered if it looked like the picture his father had sent him to practice with. He wondered just when the straps would become less stiff and awkward. He wondered what remarks the other Ravenclaws would pass every morning when they saw him dressed in all his Jewish gear. That one most of all.

He did look a little bit of a prat, standing there all trussed up down one arm with nothing on the other, but that was nothing a little attitude wouldn't fix. No mage worth his staff ever looked in the mirror and thought, _What a prat I look in this tasseled hat._ Little Yehuda balanced the second box on his forehead and wailed silently as it fell off, wondering why no one told him that these things needed to be custom fitted. He blessed God again for commanding him again to keep at it with the prayer boxes; Niloufar assumed that his troubles with the fitting were fairly common, or the Almighty wouldn't have had to command his faithful to keep at it and not quit halfway-even when the armband fell off and he had to begin everything all over again. _When the head-boxes are firmly attached,_ he read in his prayer book, _recite the following ayahs._ Three feet of leather strap dangled uselessly from his left hand as he pulled the headband down around his ears, and he seemed just about ready to cry with frustration. "Securely" was not a word he would choose to describe his current predicament.

And then he actually got a hold of himself. Niloufar was impressed. He told himself there was a first time for everything, and his troubles were only one small part of his fate, alone at school without his father or his rabbi to advise him. Yes, he looked like a prat, and yes, that armband had maybe ten minutes of devout prayer before it fell off again, but by tomorrow morning, he would be back in London, with his father and his brothers, and they would take him in hand and show him how to make the blame things stay on. The point was not how he looked. The point was the commandment. It was good.

 _I will betroth you to Me forever._ Yehuda wrapped the first strap. _I will betroth you to Me with love and justice and loyalty and mercy._ Yehuda wrapped the second strap. _I will betroth you to me with pure faith, and you will know Hashem._ Yehuda wrapped the last strap securely across his fingers and tied the extra leather around his left hand. He felt proud. Small and insignificant, but still proud. He was one more little man doing what his people had done since time immemorial. The leather straps across his hand spelled out the divine Name.

It was really kind of special, in a way. Niloufar was glad to have listened. He didn't look half bad, that kid, all kitted up for his first morning prayers as a man. And the prayers were effective, Niloufar had no doubt of that. The _Ashma Kedavra_ charm was a bit hinky about foreign languages: it illuminated what you were thinking, and if what you were thinking was, "Bismillaharakhmanarwhatsheem," or, "Bruchatanainainai," that was all that came through, loud and proud and as clear as mud. The fact that she could hear what he was saying at all was a mark of the his sincerity. She always did like that kid.

He balanced his book in his one free hand and wondered how he was ever, ever going to summon up the courage to do this again with all the other Ravenclaws staring at him. Well, that was between him and God. This was today, and no one was staring at him today.

Well, no one he could see, at any rate. Niloufar refused to feel guilty. English wizards didn't learn about disillusionment charms and invisibility spells until sixth or seventh year. However, the thought did remind her that she had another _rakat_ _Sunnah_ still unsaid, and that if Yehuda was getting on with his prayers, she should be, too. She left the _Ashma Kedavra_ running in her mind, Yehuda's prayers a quiet Hebrew buzz behind her morning _surah_ as the sun rose on them both.

 _God is great._

* * *

 **Glossary:**

 _Ashma Kedavra:_ "I will hear as I have spoken," (Aramaic). From the same construction as "Abracadabra," a.k.a. _Abra Kedavra,_ "I will create as I have spoken," and _Avda Kedavra,_ "I will destroy as I have spoken."

 _Ayah:_ a verse of Koran.

 _Bar mitzvah:_ As before, "son of the commandments," a Jewish legal adult aged thirteen years and one day. Yehuda is quite correct: it's a state and a date, not a party.

 _Fajr:_ Muslim early-morning prayers.

 _Hashem:_ God, lit. "the [ineffable] Name" (Hebrew).

 _La Khazita:_ Not seen (from the Aramaic).

 _Magi:_ The highest caste of Persian priests, whence the Latin derives the word _magus_ ("wise man") and _magic,_ the activity practiced by a _magus._ Their position in this story as chief wizards of Iran is purely fictional.

 _Rakat:_ One unit of Islamic prayer with appropriate choreography (Arabic).

 _Saheer:_ Sorcerer (Arabic).

 _Sajda:_ Prostration, the classical position associated with Muslim prayer by Westerners.

 _Shahanshah:_ A pre-Islamic title for post-Darien emperors of Zoroastrian Persia. If you've gotten this far, it has probably dawned on you that that you are reading a world-building fic populated almost exclusively by extra-canonical characters, and this is no exception. Canon purists will remember J.K. Rowling's dictum that major wizard events in history parallel major Muggle events, e.g. the ascension of Grindelwald with the rise of the Axis powers in WWII. In my fiction, the fall of the (rather toxic) secular regime of Iran in the late 1970's and its replacement by a (differently toxic) religious regime is mirrored in magical history. Ironically, or perhaps as a reaction to the Muggle extremists, Persian mages have been trying to recreate days gone by before the rise of Islam, where their imperial might stood alone between the two extremes of China and Rome. You've got to feel for the poor Iranians: wizard or Muggle, no one is allowed just to mind their own business.

 _Surah:_ A chapter of the Koran (Arabic).

 _Surah Al Fatiha:_ try " _sugya_ of _peticha_ " and see if you can guess what this prayer does. (No, it doesn't translate, but yes, it's the passage from the Koran which opens a prayer service.)

 _Tehillim:_ psalms (Hebrew).

* * *

 _After Organic Chemistry one day, when I stayed behind in the empty lecture hall to daven mincha, I looked up to see I was not entirely alone. There was a boy in a white knit hat about fifteen rows up and back, and he had had the same idea, plus or minus a little more floor space needed. This chapter is dedicated to him. May we all make the best use of the time and space we are given._


	4. Many Happy Returns

**Many Happy Returns**

הִנֵּה חָרַדְתְּ אֵלֵינוּ אֶת-כָּל-הַחֲרָדָה הַזֹּאת, מֶה לַעֲשׂוֹת לָךְ, הֲיֵשׁ לְדַבֶּר-לָךְ אֶל-הַמֶּלֶךְ אוֹ אֶל-שַׂר הַצָּבָא; וַתֹּאמֶר, בְּתוֹךְ עַמִּי אָנֹכִי יֹשָׁבֶת.

"' _See here: look at all this trouble you have gone to on our behalf! What can I do for you? Ought I to speak up for you to the king or the general of the army?' But she replied, 'I dwell among my own people.'" (Kings II, 4:13)  
_

March 19, 1993

"All right, all right everyone! Heads up, books down!" The high-pitched upper-class bray of Devon Droste disrupted the dreamy cerulean morning of the Ravenclaw common room. "I know, I know, perish the thought that any one of us wonks should neglect the all-important regimen of nonstop study, even for ten minutes on a Sunday morning, but we have a very important announcement to make!" Devon shook his long blue hair out of his eyes and beamed at them all.

Yehuda Goldstein buried his head in his _History of Magic._ There was no other word for it; Devon Droste was embarrassing. His swaggering blend of old money, hardcore talent, wizard _yichus_ , and tunnel vision made him as unstoppable as a truck. There was a kind and generous heart under all that imperious ostentation, but you had to invest in quite a lot of earplugs before you discovered it. Yehuda had long since discovered it was better to be in Devon's pocket than in his way, but that didn't keep him from cringing every time that grating voice demanded attention. He hoped the obnoxious Head Boy would run out of steam quickly, because this wretched essay had to be in before he could leave for Golders Green. At the moment, wasting time on the silver age of the English Renaissance the day before his bar mitzvah seemed a greater sacrifice than any of the _korbanos_ in tomorrow's _leyning._

"As some of you may already know, today is a very special occasion. Electric Anthony, who worked out Flitwick's Electrum spell in his first year, is coming of age today. That's him over there, the little wonk with the black tonsure cap and the pile of Hebraica-give us a wave, Anthony!"

Had Yehuda only known a spell to transfigure himself into a sofa cushion for the rest of his life, he would gladly have cast it. He bent his nose almost to the spine of his textbook and strained his ears to focus on the diffuse buzz of studying, as if he could deflect Devon's attention by sheer willpower and camouflage. _Catherine of Winchester was the greatest of the Argentine magicians, being the leader of the English witchcraft at the height of its renaissance._ She had lived in a ruined castle and made great strides in the art of concealment.

"Now, some of you may be wondering how to reconcile this important milestone in the life of an otherwise unremarkable second-year," Devon continued, unrepentant. "However, a strict regimen of fasting, prayer, and living on broccoli have enabled him, like the rest of his people, to come of age four years early! If you can get him to tell you how he manages it, do tip me off, because I've looked at those secret books he's always studying and I can't make head or tail of them!" Yehuda stared at the page until his eyes watered, trying desperately to hear anything except the swaggering bray of the Head Boy. _The Argentines of Great Britain are not to be confused with the witches of Argentina, who were led at that time by La Maldonata the Spaniard and her counterpart, Princess Morayka of the Incas._ The unchanged hum all around him of Ravenclaws at their leisure meant that someone was refusing to bear witness to his humiliation.

Now Droste was passing remarks about Yehuda's unrelenting life of virtue and the many pleasant and dreadfully naughty things he had deprived himself of so wilfully. Yehuda clenched his fingers as he gripped the thick pages, stuffing down his anger until his fingertips began to tingle. The frustration boiled and bubbled within him, the resentment being held up like a carnival attraction for swaggering loudmouths who thought he was cute. He tried to think about magic latkes appearing on his Chanukah plate or watching Quidditch with his friends on a peaceful Shabbos afternoon, but nothing could assuage the tide of bitterness rising within him. Two years of mixing with these strangers, who would never understand him or the teachings he wished to live by. No spell in the world would ever make him one of them. And why would he want to be? For the first time in many months, he wished he were really in a yeshiva in America, a foreigner at home among his own kind. A line from the martyrology floated angrily into his list of Argentines and Aureates: _Master of the Universe, this is Your Torah and this is its reward?_

A Terry-shaped shadow fell across his line of vision and his stomach clenched with a sour premonition of what was to come. He didn't know which would be worse, that Terry would call Devon out on his stinging exclusivity, or that he wouldn't. One thing was certain: listening to anyone make a scene on his behalf wouldn't make him any less of a freak. Yehuda closed his textbook and slowly edged himself upright. The only way out of this led through the door. Devon, far from noticing, didn't pause for a breath.

"So!" the self-appointed orator clapped his hands briskly. "Here's to our Electric Anthony, the hermit of Ravenclaw tower, on his coming of age. As his friends, it is our sacred duty to celebrate his ascension to the ranks of the wise and powerful. Books down, everyone! This calls for a celebration!"

If there ever had been an opportunity for an inconspicuous exit, it was gone now. At each corner of the room, Michael, Terry, Mandy, and Padma were standing with wands upraised. Before Yehuda could do more than blink, streamers blossomed out of wands, blue and bronze banners dropped from the ceiling, and strings of paper marigolds descended through the middle of the room. Exclamations of surprise and excitement rose from every corner of the room; distracted Ravenclaws looked up from their studying to find the common room decorated as if for a Quidditch victory. A shining runner draped itself across the long table from which Devon was climbing down. Penny Clearwater and Roger Davies called, "Obsonatus!" and the board groaned under the weight of homemade biscuits, bowls of pomegranate punch, towers of fruit, and an enormous cellophane-wrapped centerpiece. A chorus of excited questions, thanks, and cheers broke out as books were slammed shut, scrolls of parchment were laid down, and dozens of excited students converged on the party. Michael strolled towards Yehuda and clapped him on the shoulder. "Happy birthday, mate!" he grinned.

"All right, you lot!" called Terry loudly. "Congratulate the bar mitzvah boy before you lay into the food!"

"What…?" Yehuda spluttered, pirouetting clumsily as party debris rained down around him. "What's all this?"

Before anyone could explain, a crowd of fourth- and fifth-year girls charged towards him, squealing an incomprehensible stream of birthday congratulations and thanks for the tuck. Yehuda backed up so quickly he fell into his armchair. He put up his arms to shield his face, but the older girls converged on him in an inescapable cush brigade, determined to shower their benefactor with birthday hugs. As the panic rose within him, something hit him on the back of the neck and spread in an alarming burst of icy charge until every hair on his body was quivering. The girls' arms slipped past him and over him without touching him, as if his whole being was magnetized or electrified. Yehuda opened his eyes in surprise to watch the last of them throw her arms around him, pummel the armchair as she missed by several inches, and carry on prattling, heedless of her discomfiture. "Happy birthday, you smush!" she squealed. "You're the best!" In an instant, she was up and away, thundering with the others in the mad stampede for the food.

"Barking mad, the lot of them," whispered Michael sympathetically. "You all right, there, Yehuda?"

" … " said Yehuda, clutching his books in front of his chest like a shield. As the pounding of his heart slowed, his eyes registered a dour figure in the corner, wand still upraised. He realized it was Niloufar Farsian, a senior girl he had seen in the Rare Books Room, keeping to herself and glaring acrimoniously if anyone presumed to get near her. How she had known, Yehuda had no idea, but the Persian girl had understood his desperate need not to be touched. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never explained _shemiros negiah_ to anyone in the castle: the girls had until now taken their cue from the little hermit who kept his hands to himself. Yehuda stared at the recluse from the library: perhaps the notorious misanthrope had good reasons for keeping the lads at arm's length. The older girl quirked an eyebrow as if to say, "You're only realizing this now?" Yehuda's heart swelled with surprise, but also gratitude. She really did understand. He lifted an awkward hand in a befuddled gesture of thanks. The senior girl gave a short, sharp nod in what looked like acknowledgement before the crowd swelled around him and she was lost to view.

"Hands off, you lot!" Kevin yelled from the great table. "The spell won't work if he doesn't break the cellophane himself!"

"Come on, man!" Yehuda almost leapt out of his skin as Terry clapped him on the shoulder. "They can't cut the cake without you!"

"Why not?" asked Yehuda weakly, but Terry and Stephen were already herding him towards the table, where a closed white bakery box sat incongruously in layers of plastic packaging.

"There you are!" Devon beamed. "Exactly as instructed, seal intact. Examine its authenticity, and let's see if they spelled it right!"

Yehuda stared down at the plastic, and his heart gave an unaccustomed leap. Clear as day on the white sticker was the seal of the _Vaad HaRabbonim_ of London. Underneath, large flowing script on the white box proclaimed "Grodzinski and Daughters"- practically the most posh kosher bakery in London. It had no more business on this magical table than it would have on the roof of a taxicab in Beirut, but there was no mistaking that homelike _hekhsher_. Its lustrous sheen bespoke _simchas_ and _kiddush._

"Double wrapped as per specifications," Stephen boasted. "To keep the prefects from sneaking their greedy fingers into it. Now, out with that wand, and let's cut it!"

Yehuda's wand could have been on the moon for all he knew, but Penny Clearwater stepped up with a graceful motion, and the cellophane rolled itself up like an obliging carpet. The box obediently unfolded itself to reveal a splendid white sheet cake shaped like a Torah scroll, with _Mazal Tov, Yehuda_ written elegantly in chocolate icing. It looked incredible. It smelled mouthwatering.

"Happy birthday, Yehuda," smiled Michael. "Many happy returns."

"Returns to what?" asked Yehuda stupidly.

Michael patted him on the shoulder. "Cut your cake."

* * *

"I told you! I told you it shouldn't have been a surprise party! Did you see the look on his face? People don't like having these things just sprung on them like that."

Yehuda was sitting on the sofa with his third piece of cake, letting the chatter wash over him. For the first time in weeks, the tension caused by the Heir of Slytherin seemed to have momentarily evaporated; students were talking, laughing, and eating without a single conspiracy theory wending its way into their conversations. Even Penny Clearwater had temporarily put her detective work on hold to fill herself a plate. Yehuda sank his fork into the cake and took an enormous bite. It was perhaps the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, strawberry and vanilla, light as air and fresh as cream. The icing melted on his tongue, and he closed his eyes to savor the moment. He inhaled the fleeting sensation of peace.

"He's leaving this afternoon!" That sounded like Mandy, who had been passing out the biscuits her mother had sent from home, proudly duplicated into a mountain on the instructions of a senior girl. "It's not like we could have sent out invitations. He'd have been right chuffed if it had been one of us doing the talking, you know. It was fine."

"At least some warning!" The gentle tinkle of bracelets meant Padma, who had dressed up in a fancy scarf for the occasion. "Not just spring it on a bloke like that. He might have wanted to make a speech or something."

Yehuda opened his eyes and turned to where the girls were sitting. "I didn't want to make a speech," he said quietly. "But thank you."

"You're welcome!" beamed Mandy. "You wouldn't believe how long we've been planning this. It's the best party there's been all year, all things considered. Though we can't take credit for the really big spells. The prefects really did those."

"Thank you," repeated Yehuda. "And I'm sorry I didn't get any of the milk punch."

"Payasam Madras," corrected Padma. "And it's all right. I have to say, it's not the same with that heavy school spaghetti. It's supposed to come out like a bowl of cream with sultanas and sweet threads, not like a vat of drowned worms. I was actually relieved when Nigel Benson and Apoorv Chattermungery scarfed down the whole bowl. At least someone enjoyed it."

"No worries," said Yehuda smilingly, equally relieved not to have hurt her feelings by refusing her homemade dessert, especially after she'd checked all the ingredients so carefully and even bothered to find another Jewish student to work in the kitchen with her as _mashgiach_. That weird little Welsh kid might well have a Jewish mother, but that didn't count as _cholov Yisroel_ in Yehuda's world. "Now I know what you all were up to that afternoon in the kitchen when I came in."

The plates on the table rattled slightly as Kevin and Stephen thundered down the stairs from the dormitories to rejoin the other second-years on the sofa. "We found it! It was still up by his bed! You haven't been back there all day, mate!" The girls edged aside to make room.

"You pulled a fast one on us this morning!" Michael nudged him, seizing the package with a grin of pride. "You left so early, the elves hadn't even put out your birthday presents!"

Yehuda blinked in surprise at the jolly blue wrapping paper. Here was a delightful and unexpected benefit of living with the _goyim._ Nobody at Yesodey received actual wrapped birthday presents after the age of ten or so. (Rabbi Karsche said that only Pharaoh made a fuss about his birthday.) Last year, between the whole _Pesach_ debacle and the owl post mixup, he hadn't even received a single card or check. It had never occurred to him to go back to his bedroom and check for gifts. Of course he was too old to need such things, but his friends' persistence in treating him anyway was positively touching. He was just beginning to wonder why the packages didn't come in with flurry of owls for the morning post, when Michael poked him in the ribs and brought him back to the, for want of a better word, present.

"Sorry," said Yehuda belatedly, accepted the package from Michael's proffering hands. "I'm a little out of it. ...Thank you!" He turned the gift over in his hands. It was wrapped in a jolly Jewish star pattern, lumpy in the center and vaguely squashy with a rustle of plastic. He couldn't think what they might have gotten him.

The four boys stared at him expectantly as he carefully eased up the Sellotape and edged the floppy velveteen out of its wrappings. It was a cheap _tallis_ bag with a metal zipper in a rather ostentatious shade of blue. Yehuda rolled his eyes tolerantly- as per the rest of the morning's incongruous randomness, the _tallis_ bag clearly did not contain a _tallis_ or anything remotely like one. He unzipped the zipper and withdrew a wooden box of blocks… and a beautiful six-braided _havdalah_ candle.

It was a rich golden yellow, with a strong, sweet aroma that he could smell even through the plastic packaging. Yehuda inhaled with pleasure, turning the gift over and over in his hands. The intricate braids flowed up, over, and into each other in four different patterns. And the wicks on top were pristine white. A new _havdalah_ candle, just for him. Why hadn't he thought to bring one from home?

The blocks shifted on his lap in their plastic packaging, and Yehuda carefully put down the candle to examine them. They were richly painted in indigo, turquoise, goldenrod, and rose, tiny green leaves flowing up the sides of a rainbow-hued Jerusalem-scape, all the way up to the... brass fittings. Yehuda stared in wonder. Not wooden blocks at all.

"Open it!" Michael grinned.

Carefully, reverently, Yehuda slit the wrappings and laid out the square candle holder, the spice box like a salt shaker, the square _kiddush_ cup, and the two interlocking little candlesticks with two tea lights inside. The varnished wood gleamed richly in the morning sun, the pristine brass inserts for the candles twinkling in their smokeless shine. He ran his fingers over the fittings in awe. Half in a dream, he rearranged them on the table: candles, kiddush cup, _havdalah_ set. A _neshama yeseyrah_ spread out on the table.

"That's beautiful!" Morag breathed, coming across the room with an empty plate. "My grandmother has a set of Tuatha blocks like that. Do they make something special when you fit all the pieces together?"

Yehuda nodded. _Me,_ he thought.

"That's lovely!"

"That's clever!"

A dozen other Ravenclaws were now passing by to have a look, Michael's cousin Bronwyn and Stephen's brother and Penny Clearwater and Su Li and a few others, all exclaiming over the pretty things and peppering him with questions. Somewhere in the edge of his hearing he could make out Terry proudly providing a self-satisfied and only vaguely accurate running commentary, but Yehuda couldn't be bothered to interrupt. His heart was too full for words.

"Do you like it?"

"Is that from your family?"

"Naw, it's from the Ravenclaws!" Kevin grinned. "We picked it out in London in a Muggle gift shop last Christmas. We wanted to get one of those striped cloaks, which the shopkeeper said he probably had already, so Michael found this instead, which, by the reverent silence of this here birthday boy, seems to have been providentially accurate to the usual Michael Corner standard. Observe, if you please, the monogrammed bag, picked out by yours truly."

Morag looked around obediently, and Yehuda hastily turned over the _tallis_ bag on his knee. His eyes took a moment to take in on the blocky embroidery: gold and silver and bronze, flashy and modern, like something out of the jazz age. It was nothing he would have picked out in a million years, but the boys were looking so pleased with themselves, Yehuda would have found something nice to say had they brought him a picture of an alligator. "It's very nice," he smiled. "Thank you all very much."

Michael laughed out loud. "Poor blighter," he grinned. "Look at his face! He's completely concussed! Next time we surprise you, mate, we're going to have to give you a week's warning. You haven't even read what it says."

Yehuda took a closer look. Across the bottom of the square pattern ran the words _Lev Yehuda ben Ami._ _The heart of Yehuda, the son of my people._

"There we go!" smiled Michael. "Now he's read it."

Yehuda looked up, his eyes luminous. "How did you do this?" he breathed. "How did you know? Is it… is this magic?"

"No magic," Michael assured him pleasantly. "Just shopping. Kevin and Stephen found it on the rack, and the shopman thought it was cute so he threw it in, gratis. I suppose there must have been a dozen other names on that rack as well- David and Daniel and Michael, and whatnot. I don't suppose any of us know how common a name Yehuda is in Jewish circles. Just a bit of luck, them finding your name like that. Not bad for one afternoon's work!"

"This isn't my name," Yehuda breathed, looking from the _tallis_ bag to the _Shabbos_ table.

"It's not?" Michael looked distinctly disappointed. Kevin stopped singing and Terry stopped talking, and they all looked at him.

"No," Yehuda breathed. "It's my heart." He tried to explain. "Here. With my people and all these things. No matter where I go or where I have to go, I can bring what's important. Here," he thumped his chest.

The words came in fits and starts, making no sense at all, crashing like rocks in an avalanche all around the point he wanted to make. But his four friends were grinning proudly, nodding and prodding each other at the success of their plans, smilingly taking in his incoherent attempts at thanks. And perhaps there was some wizardly wisdom in them after all, because they didn't wait for him to explain any more clearly or make a speech thanking them for their trouble. The other Ravenclaws smiled vaguely and nodded and wished him a happy birthday as they wandered away. Benjamin appeared from out of a corner, shook his hand, and vanished back to his own part of the castle. Soon, the prefects were cleaning up the party and the others wandered off to clubs and practice sessions and other wizardly delights of half eleven.

"Happy birthday, Yehuda," said Michael earnestly.

"Thank you," Yehuda whispered back. "It is."

* * *

"How did you do it?" Yehuda burst out at last, his neglected essay crammed on top of his unused plate while the others helped themselves to lunch. His heart felt so light, he could safely put behind him those horrible minutes when Devon Droste had thrown his life under a microscope and used it as an excuse to throw a bash. "A Grodzinski cake at Hogwarts? How?"

"I wanted to get you something you could eat," Michael explained eagerly. "But Droste overheard us talking and he kind of took over everything. He let us use his telephone book-you know, the one he was bothering you about in September? The one he needed the Electrum spell for?"

Yehuda nodded. "He wanted the book to place calls into the Muggle telephone network. We got it working eventually. I cleared out pretty quickly after that, let me tell you."

Michael nodded. "That's the one. I think he's got a girl in London that he uses it to talk to. Anyway, he showed us how to find the right kind of kosher bakery in the city. We couldn't get the hang of it at first. Kevin said the yellow pages are more magical than the white ones, which was fine and good if only he could spell as well as he could cast the spell, d'you know! But finally, we found this place last week and got a call through, and Devon helped us place the order."

"It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen," Terry rolled his eyes. "It's not like Kev and I haven't been talking on phones since we were kids, but this was a book, and here we are trying to figure out which way is up and sticking our noses into the spine to hear better. They kept trying to sell us Bikki-Pops, which we never did figure out what they were, and Kevin asks to speak to the manager and he ends up with this huge phone book draped over his head to hear better."

"They didn't want to sell to us!" Kevin grinned proudly at the memory. "They thought we were prank calling them or something and asked to speak to our mum and dad. Not something we could do in a hurry, innit?"

"We were laughing all over the place like complete gits," Terry grumbled. "I kept telling everyone, we have to speak clearly. They kept asking us about prices and pounds and we couldn't figure out if they meant pounds of cake or whatever. It was completely embarrassing. I could never walk into that store now after that call we made. They must have thought we were absolutely mad."

"It was the funniest thing you've ever seen," grinned Kevin. "The lady told us to clear off and tried to hang up-"

"So we panicked," Stephen cut in, "and started babbling like idiots! I can't even remember what we said, it was mental. Then Droste swaggers over and grabs the book and says he's our dad. She thought he was completely mental, too, but he had this little colored Muggle card with a lot of numbers on it, and that quieted her down."

"For which," Michael interrupted him, "we still haven't paid him back. So dig up some birthday gold or keep your heads down and look angelic."

Stephen was too caught up in the story to worry about the mundanities of debt collection. "So then there's the question of where it's going and why we can't pick it up in the shop and Droste tells her to deliver the cake to a post box in London, and that started her up all over again. _It's a 36-inch sheet cake,_ she said! _It don't fit in no post box!_ " Stephen delivered his most dramatic impersonation of an overworked East Indian matron. " _You mad or something?_ "

"How did you get it here?" Yehuda was entirely with the manager on this. "It must have taken three owls to carry, and the icing isn't even mussed. And whose mad idea was it to use a post box? I know you couldn't very well tell her to take it to the nearest owl sanctuary, but a post box? Who's got a post box three feet wide?"

"I do!" grinned Devon, coming up behind them with two friends in tow. He pushed Kevin and Stephen aside and insinuated his thin frame into the second-years' bench. "Undetectable Extension Charm, best friend of the artisan wizard. The space graciously rearranges itself to accommodate your every parcel. The front of the post box opens in London, but the back is right here in the High Street post office. Truly a metaphor for the modern wizard! With one extra little charm, you know when your post has been delivered, and all it takes is a few minutes unsupervised to pop down to the village and retrieve it."

"I'm going to regret asking this," Marietta Edgecombe learned down the table. "But why have you bothered with all this? Just what are you smuggling into this school that you can't get by owl post?"

"You wouldn't believe the things you can get from Muggle shops and Muggle catalogs," said the Head Boy with unaccustomed seriousness, "and for half the prices they charge in Diagon Alley or here in Hogsmeade. Live beetles, medieval parchment fragments, astrolabes, fool's gold… You can get a wardrobe fit for a sorcerer king-if you know where to look. They say Muggle studies is the soft option, but them's the ones paying full price at Mulpepper's Apothecary! Seriously. Never underestimate the cleverness and ingenuity of the Muggle world. You'd be surprised what they've figured out. That post box, with one half in the wizarding world and one half in greater London-it's truth made real. It's a signpost to the future, is what it is.."

"Heavy," remarked one of Devon's sidekicks.

"Listen to our 'father,'" grinned Stephen companionably. "Live as brothers side by side with our non-magical kinfolk according to his worldly precepts."

"You're a little twit," Devon replied affectionately. "Yehuda knows what I mean, don't you Yehuda? Ask him about the power of living in two worlds, to see the best in everyone and learn what you can from every person around you, no matter where you hang your hat."

Yehuda was quiet. The fact that Ben Zoma said the same thing in _Pirkei Ovos_ didn't mean that it wasn't a hundred and forty pounds of loose cannon saying it now. "Think about it," Devon urged, "All that knowledge that never makes it into this castle. Look at Ilvermorny in America. Bigger than Hogwarts, built by a Muggle, too. You're your best self when you have two worlds to live in. Wiser. Clearer. You find new ways of doing things and better ways of seeing. You've got power that no one else can imagine. It makes you strong."

"And it means you can lay your hands on a tattooed pig and levitate it into Robert Hilliard's bed," one of the older boys added cheerfully. "And the headmaster can pretend it wasn't you because he thinks it was so terribly clever."

"That, too!" Devon considered.

"You're a fountain of wisdom, Dad," Kevin assured him. "When you catch the Heir of Slytherin singlehanded, we'll be proud to say we're the sons you never had. And in the meantime, I need the broomstick for next weekend, and I want you to correct my Potions essay."

"Not until you clean up that mess in your room!" the Head Boy beamed indulgently. "And if I'm not mistaken, you have six incantations and orisons to practice before tomorrow."

Yehuda was dreadfully relieved as the lot of them shoved off and made more room on the bench. He frantically scribbled away at his essay, trying to clear his mind of the banter. For some reason, it wasn't as easy as all that.

* * *

Freedom! In the end, he had made up something about Catherine of Winchester's ruined castle as a metaphor for her unshakeable belief in minding one's own business and dropped off the embarrassing piece of sophomoric tripe with Prof. Sinistra at the door of the staff room. It wasn't like he was in danger of failing History of Magic or that Prof. Binns would speak to his Head of House and forbid him from going home for the celebration, anyway. He was pattering down the steps to the Great Hall, gleefully humming M.B.D.'s _Shehecheyonu_ , when Devon's blue-haired figure swung across on a trick staircase and brushed passed him on the way up. Yehuda never did figure out what made him open his mouth instead of tiptoeing on past. Really, he had just meant to thank him for the cake.

"What you said at lunch," Yehuda called hesitantly, and Devon slowed and turned. "About the cake and the post box and living in two worlds at once…"

"Always glad to share my wit and wisdom with my disciples!" the Head Boy preened.

Yehuda felt silly. This wasn't where he wanted the conversation to go, and he didn't quite know how to say what he wanted to say, especially to a senior boy. "It isn't that easy, is it? Like you said in front of your friends. I heard what you said. Yes, it makes you better and stronger, but it doesn't make you happy, does it?"

Devon cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

"You can't just live simultaneously in both worlds," Yehuda tried to explain. "There's only one you. You can't… you can't take yourself back and forth with you whenever you want. You can't take other people with you. You know that, don't you?"

The Head Boy was quiet for a beat. "I know," he said, at last. A tinge of sadness crept into his voice.

"That's why you wanted that telephone so badly," said Yehuda quietly. "To feel less alone."

Devon looked up sharply, his icy blue eyes no longer merry. Gone was his glittering persona and swagger; the Head Boy stared at Yehuda: dark, silent, and inscrutable.

Yehuda didn't know what came over him in that moment. His bar mitzvah was tomorrow, and there were so many more important demands on his time: notes to arrange, _tefillin_ to pack, a the nonstop parade of surprises and incongruities to recover from in the mad rush to get everything done and finished. In only a few hours, he would be grabbing his Portkey, fleeing the castle, having dinner with his own family, davening _ma'ariv_ in his own _shul_. This boy was not his friend. But some weird _yetzer_ took control of his voice, and it was not thanking the older boy for the cake and excusing himself before things got complicated. It was asking for trouble.

Yehuda's voice said hesitantly, "Does it ever get any better? Do they ever really understand you?"

"Never," whispered Devon. "You're always alone. Always."

"Does-" Yehuda tried to get a hold of himself, but the question came bubbling up. "Your friend...?"

Devon looked Yehuda straight in the eye, a haunted look of pain and darkness. "No," he said quietly. "She'll never understand either. It's not her world. It's not their world."

Yehuda thought of everything that awaited him at home this evening, the hugs and the tears and the rushing and the chaos. He thought of his family, gathered around the _Shabbos_ table at home, listening to Tattie make _kiddush_ , the babies splashing in their soup bowls, Estee complaining, all the little ones fighting over whose crepe-paper cutout or _parsha_ speech came first. The thought that it might not be his world was unthinkable. He remembered how he felt when Rabbi Zeller had so casually assumed he would abandon his magical studies as soon as he was no longer a fire hazard. "How can you live like this?" Yehuda asked the older boy. "How could anyone?"

Devon looked at him carefully. "It doesn't have to be like this," he said quietly. "You don't have to make the mistakes I made. I'm probably not the best person to judge." He considered for a long moment. "Use those rare books of yours to build bridges," the Head Boy told him. "Not burn them. It's the only thing they're ever good for."

And with that, the older boy turned tail and vanished down a gloomy hallway. "Thanks for the cake…!" Yehuda called after him.

A door clicked open above him, and a distant voice called, "Any time!" And then Yehuda was alone.

* * *

 **Glossary:**

 _Bar mitzvah:_ coming of age as a Jewish man, lit. "son of the commandments." No, Yehuda cannot do magic unsupervised, drive, or vote now that he counts as a Jewish man, but he is expected to be morally culpable for the repercussions of his conduct. The responsibility for keeping G-d's commandments is now his to uphold, rather than his parents' to enforce. The age of 12 or 13 for this transfer of rights, responsibilities and privileges is based on the fairly accurate theory that the social intransigence of such pre-teens knows no bounds, and no parent in the world can rightly be held responsible for making the little punks regularly do what the adults think they ought to be doing. The feminine form is _bat mitzvah_ , "daughter of the commandments." Yehuda is among a small minority of pious souls who is more concerned with the fitness of his being to serve G-d than the Hebrew cantillation he can now perform onstage with the other grownups at his synagogue or the tremendous party his family will then throw in his honor.

 _Cush:_ apparently, only my mother uses this word. Pejorative slang for a hug. In context, this is generally an informal or unwelcome hug, e.g. an elder, professor, or dumb kid who feels compelled to be "with it" by hugging everyone in sight (including Orthodox students, ladies of seniority, etc. who'd much prefer to demur). A child can also grab a stuffed animal for a cush with as little regards for its preferences.

 _Davening:_ Praying (Yiddish).

 _Goyim:_ a Biblical word meaning "[other] nations," e.g. gentiles. Yehuda's insular life has screened him off from most of the social niceties of talking to non-Jews; he would be bemused to have it pointed out to him that this wholly expository and inoffensive Biblical word is oftener used as an insult in modern times, while the Biblical insults _sheygetz_ and _shiksa_ (lit. "disgusting creature," esp. regarding one's future in-laws) have been inexplicably reclaimed to be used with pride and affection by many of the non-Jews in question. But even Yehuda, with all the political correctness of a clam, has enough street sense to keep the word "goyim" in the privacy of his head, where it will not cause offence or provoke rude hand gestures from the populace.

 _Havdalah:_ as before, the Saturday night ceremony bidding farewell to the Sabbath and beginning a new week. The depressing onset of a new work week is meant to be offset by the sweetness of the spices, the taste of the wine, the light of the multi-wicked candle, and the beautiful melodies of the prayers.

 _Hekhsher:_ stamp of an agency certifying the product as kosher. A good word to know.

 _Kiddush:_ in one context, a festive spread for Sabbath, holiday, or other special occasion. In the other, the blessing over the wine that begins such a festive meal.

 _Kiddush cup_ : a goblet or other similarly special cup for blessing the wine. Now Yehuda has a special candlesticks and a matching cup for Friday night's Sabbath blessings.

 _Korbanos:_ sacrifices on the altar (Biblical).

 _Leyning:_ public cantillation of the Torah (Yiddish).

 _Ma'ariv:_ the evening service (Hebrew). Not to be confused with _Maghreb_ , the Islamic evening service (Arabic).

 _Neshama yeseyra:_ an extra soul. The Kabbalistic tradition explains how every Jew receives an extra soul for the duration of the Sabbath, making them happier, more spiritual, and more at peace with Creation during that sacred time.

 _Parsha:_ portion of scripture for the week (Hebrew).

 _Pirkei Ovos:_ Wisdom of the Sages, courtesy of the sages of the _mishnaic_ period. The classical piece of rabbinic wisdom literature. Also _Pirkei Avot_ or "Ethics of the Fathers."

 _Shehecheyonu:_ If there's a better-known Big Band melody to kick off an Orthodox Jewish party, I don't know about it. If it's not Mordechai Ben David's arrangement, tell me whose it is. It's like "Happy Birthday"-who knows who wrote it, anyway?

 _Shemiros negiah:_ literally "guarding [against] physical contact." Yehuda has been raised to be a perfect gentleman who never ever so much as lays hands on a girl until he is holding his bride's hand after cantor has finished the wedding blessings. Nothing in the world would induce him to hug or even touch a girl who is not his sister, mother, grandmother, or wife, and he finds the invasion of his personal space an appalling breach of privacy. This stricture of no physical contact between the sexes effectively eliminates P.D.A., but is the cause of some embarrassment in the original story when Mr. Goldstein cannot shake hands with Prof. McGonagall and Mrs. Goldstein introduces herself with hands-free effusion to Michael's father. Given the difficulties this presents to the uninformed, Orthodox Jews in the public sector sometimes make exceptions for business handshakes whose absence would cause offence, or operate as _shomer neGUYah,_ i.e. they make no exceptions for anyone and don't touch guys either.

 _Shul:_ synagogue (Yiddish). Etymology and sociology go hand in hand in this one: the Hebrew and Greek/Latin/English words translate as "meetin' house," while the Yiddish word translates as "school."

 _Simcha:_ a celebratory occasion (Hebrew).

 _Tallis:_ as before, a prayer shawl.

 _Tefillin:_ prayer boxes, as per Deuteronomy 6:8; black wooden boxes with four excerpts from the holy scriptures, bound on the arm and in a band across the forehead during morning prayers. As a _bar mitzvah_ , Yehuda is now responsible for wearing them every workday morning. I don't doubt that he was up at dawn to try putting these on for the first time, away from the prying eyes of curious Ravenclaws-without a father or brother there to help him adjust the straps, it probably took him ten minutes to get kitted up, and then they probably fell off halfway through his prayers. They'll set him straight when he gets back to London.

Tonsure: (English from the Latin) the round, clean-shaven patch of skull characteristic of the Catholic monk (you know, the reason Sir Derek Jacobi isn't doing more Brother Cadfael for the BBC?). Despite being Dumbledore's favorite pupil, Devon has _no idea_ what he's talking about. No, Yehuda is not shaving his head under his _kipah_. The head boy is just throwing big words around to make himself sound smarter. I don't know _anyone_ like that.

 _Va'ad HaRabbonim:_ Rabbinical Assembly. In a gentile country, such a judiciary primarily concerns itself with certifying commercial establishments as kosher, maintaining the religious divorce court, and arbitrating disagreements between local rabbis.

 _Yetzer:_ impulse. Can be the _yetzer hatov_ , the impulse to do good, or the _yetzer hora_ , the impulse to sin. (Literally, the word _yezter_ means "creation." The language points to a deep-seated Hebraic theology that G-d Himself created greed, lust, etc., not as a temptation but as a ladder to greatness: energy that, when properly channeled, can start businesses, families, and otherwise benefit society.)

 _Yichus:_ lineage, the Who's Whom of the community. If your name precedes you, doors fly open as everyone scrambles to make way for the Honorable Scion. Oddly enough, ultra-Orthodox circles and the British upper crust have this in common.


End file.
